creating impact for first-generation students.
We worked with a team at a top Australian university whose vision was to better understand the experiences faced by first-generation students with parents who didn’t attend university. Compared with those whose families have studied in the past, these students face significant challenges in getting into and succeeding at university.
One of the main challenges for the team was to understand the experience of these students within the university’s context and environment. Some academic research was available, however, the research was limited as it focused mainly on North American universities with only some examples from the Australian university context. So, we looked at collecting our own data.
deep diving to get the data.
Our objective was to engage directly with the students—both past and present, and including staff who identified as first-generation—to understand their perspectives, develop ideas, and help address the identified issues. We could then test these ideas to see which should (and shouldn’t!) be pursued for implementation.
The team’s goal was to use a combined human-centred design (HCD) and Pretotyping approach to develop a program of initiatives to support these students, setting them up for success at the university when they first arrived and throughout the lifecycle of their studies.
We designed the research to identify the questions we wanted to ask and how the conversation would flow to get to the heart of their experience. In this process, we intentionally left plenty of space for the person to take the conversation where they want, talking about the things that are important to them, and we focused on listening.
This approach helps the customer (student or staff member) feel comfortable and at ease in sharing their stories and experiences. Active listening and other techniques grounded in empathy help them feel heard, and this is when deep and rich insights come out in the conversation.
We conducted 50 one-on-one, hour-long interviews with the students and staff, and identified a myriad of challenges that they faced, such as:
Financial disadvantage meaning they had to work to support themselves while studying.
Financial disadvantage meaning they missed out on extracurricular activities offered by the university.
Peer pressure from their family and community to not study because that’s not something they did.
Not feeling like they belong in the university community during their studies.
Not feeling like they belong back home after their study completion.
implementing initiatives through important insights.
Despite facing these hardships, at the end of the conversation they were positive, excited and grateful that the university had committed to a project to look at these issues and come up with ideas to better support them as students.
We collected thousands of verbatim comments, which were grouped into insights and ten high-level themes used to generate a short list of prioritised ideas.
The student success team will continue engaging with this group of students by testing the shortlisted ideas with them, and implementing those supported by students as part of a program of work going forward, ensuring that these students feel like they belong.
Your customers have all the information and insights you need to make their experience the best it can be. We can help you solve their experience problems and engage with them like never before.
